GENERALIZATION AND MAINTENANCE OF COMPLEX SKILLS BY SEVERELY HANDICAPPED ADOLESCENTS FOLLOWING PICTURE PROMPT TRAINING

Three severely handicapped adolescents were trained, using a picture prompt package, to complete three complex vocational or daily living tasks. Results indicated that all students required many training sessions to learn the first training task. Following initial training, however, all students generalized their use of the pictures across settings without additional training. The students also needed substantially reduced amounts of training on the remaining two tasks. During maintenance, two of the students continued to perform at relatively high levels of accuracy with and without the picture prompts, whereas one student continued to need the pictures.     

A triarchic theory of intellectual development during adulthood

A triarchic theory of intellectual development during adulthood is proposed. The theory comprises three parts: a contextual part that emphasizes the role of intelligence in successful adaptation to the environment; a componential part that specifies the mental mechanisms and processes underlying intelligent behavior; and an experiential part that indicates that intelligence is best manifested in instances in which the task or situation requiring the application of these processes is relatively novel or is becoming automatized. A selective and brief review of the literature on adult intellectual development is provided as evidence for the triarchic theory. The triarchic theory is then compared with four other theoretical approaches to adult intellectual development. It is argued that the triarchic theory provides new insights regarding the ways in which intelligence changes from early to middle to late adulthood and suggests certain properties of tasks and situations that make them more or less useful as measures of intelligence at various points in adult intellectual development.     

THE TREATMENT OF SEVERE BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS IN SCHOOL SETTINGS USING A TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE MODEL

We evaluated the feasibility of local school personnel conducting functional analysis and reinforcement-based treatment procedures within actual classroom settings. Following an initial in-service workshop on functional assessment and differential reinforcement procedures, on-site technical assistance was provided two to four times per month to local school personnel working in transdisciplinary teams. Overall results suggest that local school personnel were able to implement all procedures adequately with periodic technical assistance. In addition, functional analysis was effective in identifying individual maintaining contingencies, the derived treatments were effective, and the results were maintained throughout the approximate 18 months of this investigation.     

Personality traits and job characteristics as predictors of job experiences

This study investigates the relationships of personality traits and job characteristics (predictors) with job experiences (criteria) in a sample of job incumbents working in a broad variety of occupations. Subjects were 181 job applicants, who participated in a personnel selection procedure carried out by a Dutch staffing organization. As a part of this procedure, subjects completed a number of personality questionnaires. Personality scale scores were factor-analysed, and four orthogonal trait dimensions were identified: Emotional Stability, Extraversion, Sensation Seeking, and Achievement Motivation. Between l½ and 2 years after the selection, subjects rated their current jobs on four job characteristics dimensions, namely dynamicity, autonomy, external–internal, and structure. At the same time, they completed a questionnaire measuring job experiences, namely job satisfaction, job-induced tension, propensity to leave the job, and self-appraised performance. The results indicated that personality traits had several significant and hypothesized longitudinal effects on the job experience criteria. Personality contributed to the prediction of the criteria even when the effects of job characteristics were taken into account. No significant Personality X Job Characteristics interactions were found, although subgroup analysis revealed a number of interesting differences among the various categories of occupations. For example, Sensation Seeking predicted job strain and propensity to leave, especially in highly structured and not very autonomous jobs. It is concluded that work experiences are clearly determined by person and job characteristics, although in an additive rather than in an interactional way.     

Differentiating ego functions of borderline and narcissistic personalities

This study investigated differences in ego functions of borderline and narcissistic personality disorders through examining responses to Rorschach structural and content variables. Reality testing, thought process, affective regulation, impulse control, and the defenses of splitting and grandiosity were examined from Rorschach protocols of 50 borderlines and 26 narcissists. The borderlines produced greater distortion in reality testing, p less than .05; the narcissists produced more insidious thought process disturbance, p less than .05; and higher functioning groups demonstrated greater control of impulses, p less than .05. Borderlines in this sample demonstrated more affective constriction than the narcissists and used more splitting, p less than .05; narcissists used more grandiosity, p less than .05. Implications of this study are (a) ego functions mature inconsistently, (b) affective responsivity influences ego disorganization, and (c) level of functioning and IQ are related to the production of Rorschach variables.     

Stimulus control of responding in the early trials of differential conditioning

In Experiment 1 two groups of rats were given 12 differential conditioning trials, seven to the rewarded alley (S+) and five to the nonrewarded alley (S?), prior to being extinguished in both alleys. Group S?S+ received S+ trials, following S? trials in acquisition, while Group S+S? did not receive S+ trials following S? trials in acquisition. In extinction S+ and S? trials were presented according to a quasi-random sequence for both groups. Running on the last 3 trials of acquisition was found to be faster following S+ than following S? trials. Group S?S+ showed greater resistance to extinction and less discriminative responding in extinction than Group S+S?. These results suggest that responding in differential conditioning is controlled not merely by S+ and S? but by the memories of reward (S^R) and of nonreward (S^N) as well. When the joint effects of both classes of cues were considered, e.g., S^R+S+, responding in the early trials of differential conditioning was shown to be highly orderly. Experiment 2 was highly similar to Experiment 1 except that Groups S?S+ and S+S? were equated along dimensions not equated in Experiment 1. The results obtained in Experiment 2 were highly similar to those obtained in Experiment 1.